Climate Change News & Discussions

[wjfox]

I've learned a lot regarding the whole climate change topic. However, I neither enjoy learning it nor like writing about it.

From what I now know, there are insane mistakes and impenitent irrationality on the side of the climate change activists. There is a lot going awfully in the world, but CO2 emissions are not one of the bad things. In fact, CO2 is good for plants, it's necessary.

It's worth watching and listening to this, the guy used to be the president of Greenpeace:


I think this website and forum are also misguided and confused about this whole topic. You are not reading the right books. However, I don't enjoy reading nor listening about such topics at all.

I can't stress enough how depressing and frustrating it is, to see you and others being totally brainwashed by cranks like Patrick Moore. Why the f*ck don't you listen to actual climate scientists, who are 99.9% in agreement that human emissions of CO2 are changing the climate?

"CO2 is plant food" – well of course, there is some small and temporary benefit to increased CO2 in localised greenhouse environments. But FFS use some critical thinking skills... a highly controlled indoor setting is different to an entire planetary biosphere, which is highly impacted by CO2 and its resulting extreme temperatures, prolonged droughts, flooding, wildfires, soil degradation, ocean acidification, the list goes on.

You are really embarrassing yourself here and showing how susceptible you are to disinformation.

https://www.desmog.com/patrick-moore/

[Bird]

I've learned a lot regarding the whole climate change topic. However, I neither enjoy learning it nor like writing about it.

From what I now know, there are insane mistakes and impenitent irrationality on the side of the climate change activists. There is a lot going awfully in the world, but CO2 emissions are not one of the bad things. In fact, CO2 is good for plants, it's necessary.

It's worth watching and listening to this, the guy used to be the president of Greenpeace:


I think this website and forum are also misguided and confused about this whole topic. You are not reading the right books. However, I don't enjoy reading nor listening about such topics at all.

Ohhhhh dear. I am not sure there is a nice way to say this but I will try.

I understand people differ in their opinions. For example, the question of how we should adapt the world economy as automation becomes more prevalent. This is a topic on which I could respectfully disagree with those who feel differently to me.

This post you've made is not one such topic. I can't think of a nicer way to put this, but posting this means you forfeit all credibility in my eyes and I doubt I'm the only one. You are asserting that you - somehow - know better than nearly all of the scientists on the planet. To suggest it is the rest of us who are misguided and confused, rather than you, is baffling and arrogant.

I'm honestly a bit stunned to see this on a futurism forum of all places and in 2024. You have to willfully ignore a staggering amount of science over a very long time in order to conclude that CO2 emissions straight up aren't a problem. Please click the post wjfox linked you to and read what he wrote in reply to you.

I'm sorry you got sucked into believing things that simply aren't true.

[wjfox]

No need to worry, everyone – CO2 is plant food, and it's really that simple. No nuance required at all.

And I watched some random YouTube video by a non-climate scientist, who pretends to be the founder of Greenpeace. He told me that tens of thousands of actual climate scientists, along with 200+ years of scientific canon, can just be completely ignored in favour of made-up science.

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Farmers sound the alarm as pantry staple crop becomes increasingly difficult to grow: 'Production is at serious risk'

Tue, November 26, 2024

One of the world's top vanilla-producing countries has seen its output threatened by extreme heat.

Vanilla plants normally flourish under the canopy of trees in regions where crops are grown in Mexico. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the country is one of the top five producers of vanilla. But vanilla is sensitive to heat waves and drought, two extreme types of weather seen this year in Mexico.

"Vanilla production is at serious risk as a result of the effects caused by climate change," said University of Veracruz professor Alejandro Quirino Villarreal, per Modern Farmer.

"All of our producers estimate that we lost about 80 percent of this year's produce," plantation worker Arturo Elias Garcia Gonzales said.

[...]

Mexico has made headlines this year, enduring devastating droughts amid record-breaking heat. Extreme weather exacerbated by a warming world has impacted another pantry staple this year. Olive oil prices have surged as production dropped in the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/farmers-soun ... 16552.html

[firestar464]

It's so funny that Tadasuke put "ending disinformation" as one of his top ten wishes.

[Tadasuke]

Some books open you to the truth, which is both terrible and not so terrible at the same time. I don't enjoy it at all btw, I read and listen from a sense of guilt, stress, fear and obligation. I honestly feel overwhelmed by all this stuff.

For example worth reading could be:
• Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All by Michael Shellenberger
• Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate by S. Fred Singer, David R. Legates and Anthony R. Lupo
• Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom by Patrick Moore
• The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Riddley
• Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet by Marian L. Tupy and Gale L. Pooley
• San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities by Michael Shellenberger

Btw, I also read Sony Seba's books. He's a futurist who's very much for renewable energy, EVs and automation.

[Cyber_Rebel]

Some books open you to the truth, which is both terrible and not so terrible at the same time. I don't enjoy it at all btw, I read and listen from a sense of guilt, stress, fear and obligation. I honestly feel overwhelmed by all this stuff.

Then why comment on it at all and add to such stress? What so called "obligation" do you hope to achieve? Wjfox is not suddenly about to shift the site to a climate denying one, and with all due respect if he attempted to do so we'd have to challenge him Caesar style about such a decision. FT is very hard science fact based about the future. As far as books opening up to the "truth" I'd rather take the actual empirical data of years' worth of study.

Source: https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/evidence/

Do scientists agree on climate change?

Earth-orbiting satellites and new technologies have helped scientists see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate all over the world. These data, collected over many years, reveal the signs and patterns of a changing climate.

Scientists demonstrated the heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases in the mid-19th century.2 Many of the science instruments NASA uses to study our climate focus on how these gases affect the movement of infrared radiation through the atmosphere. From the measured impacts of increases in these gases, there is no question that increased greenhouse gas levels warm Earth in response.

Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.

Why not read into actual data points and graphs of human effects on emissions rather than opinion pieces:

https://ourworldindata.org/climate-change

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/u ... emperature

Still stuns me that with all that's happened especially since the Australian wildfire period that this is even still a "debate" to be considered. What's even funnier is that I find myself repeating this no matter how much the issue presents itself.

Speaking (again bc Wjfox already covered this, but I see it wasn't read) of Patrick Moore, here's a real deep dive into the kind of so-called intellectual this man truly is:

Analyzing the initial five chapters of Patrick Moore's recent climate-change denial book, Notes from the Road delivers a scathing critique, systematically debunking each chapter as a compilation of misinformation and pseudoscience.

[Tadasuke]

Lives of 99% of humans used to be very short, awfully impoverished, tragically miserable, really brutish and profoundly upsetting.

Humans using energy derived from fossil fuels have made living more bearable and less abysmal in the recent history.

And now we are being told that "we are damaging the planet"?

THEN WHY DID WE EVOLVE ON THIS PLANET IN THE FIRST PLACE !?

First to suffer by the billions, and then to destroy it by being who we are and trying to make things better for ourselves? That would be TOTALLY FUCKED UP! I cannot possibly accept that!

[firestar464]

Some books open you to the truth, which is both terrible and not so terrible at the same time. I don't enjoy it at all btw, I read and listen from a sense of guilt, stress, fear and obligation. I honestly feel overwhelmed by all this stuff.

Then why comment on it at all and add to such stress? What so called "obligation" do you hope to achieve? Wjfox is not suddenly about to shift the site to a climate denying one, and with all due respect if he attempted to do so we'd have to challenge him Caesar style about such a decision. FT is very hard science fact based about the future. As far as books opening up to the "truth" I'd rather take the actual empirical data of years' worth of study.

Source: https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/evidence/

Do scientists agree on climate change?

Earth-orbiting satellites and new technologies have helped scientists see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate all over the world. These data, collected over many years, reveal the signs and patterns of a changing climate.

Scientists demonstrated the heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases in the mid-19th century.2 Many of the science instruments NASA uses to study our climate focus on how these gases affect the movement of infrared radiation through the atmosphere. From the measured impacts of increases in these gases, there is no question that increased greenhouse gas levels warm Earth in response.

Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.

Why not read into actual data points and graphs of human effects on emissions rather than opinion pieces:

https://ourworldindata.org/climate-change

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/u ... emperature

Still stuns me that with all that's happened especially since the Australian wildfire period that this is even still a "debate" to be considered. What's even funnier is that I find myself repeating this no matter how much the issue presents itself.

Speaking (again bc Wjfox already covered this, but I see it wasn't read) of Patrick Moore, here's a real deep dive into the kind of so-called intellectual this man truly is:

Analyzing the initial five chapters of Patrick Moore's recent climate-change denial book, Notes from the Road delivers a scathing critique, systematically debunking each chapter as a compilation of misinformation and pseudoscience.

[caltrek]

@Tadasuke,

If all the information and website links provided in the course of this thread are not persuasive to you and only books are to be trusted, perhaps you should consider reading some of the following:

An Inconvenient Truth by former Vice-President Al Gore.

Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway. This traces back the present denialism and skepticism toward science concerning climate to the campaign by the tobacco industry to cast doubt on findings regarding the adverse health effects of smoking. The book documents how a surprising number of the most hard-core skeptics started out as hired guns for the tobacco interests.

The Carbon Wars by Jeremy Leggett. In this book, Leggett concludes that addressing climate change purely through political campaigns was ineffective and that focusing efforts on the private sector development of renewable energy sources was likely to result in more desirable outcomes. It is very prescient in anticipating the success of renewables such as solar energy.

Hothouse Earth by John Gribbon. This is subtitled The Greenhouse Effect and Gaia.

Greenhouse by Gale E. Christianson. This takes on a more historical treatment of the topic.

Field Notes From a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert.

The Heat is On by Ross Gelbspan. This is subtitled The Climate Crisis, the Cover -Up, the Prescription.

Global Weirdness by an organization called Climate Central. A very prescient book that discusses "Severe Storms, Deadly Heat Waves, Relentless Drought, Rising Seas, and the Weather of the Future."

Encyclical on Climate Change & Inequality by Pope Francis with an introduction by Naomi Oreskes.

The Great Disruption by the Australian author Paul Gilding.

This Changes Everything - Capitalism vs the Climate by Naomi Klein.

Many of these books brilliantly anticipated today's headlines.

A book that is a little dated and contains a somewhat more technical discussion of the many physical and ecological variables involved in global warming is Scientists on Gaia edited by Stephen H. Schneider and Penelope J. Boston.

[Powers]

Lives of 99% of humans used to be very short, awfully impoverished, tragically miserable, really brutish and profoundly upsetting.

Humans using energy derived from fossil fuels have made living more bearable and less abysmal in the recent history.

And now we are being told that "we are damaging the planet"?

THEN WHY DID WE EVOLVE ON THIS PLANET IN THE FIRST PLACE !?

First to suffer by the billions, and then to destroy it by being who we are and trying to make things better for ourselves? That would be TOTALLY FUCKED UP! I cannot possibly accept that!

[firestar464]

Yeah, evolution and changes in culture and technology do not necessarily guarantee a better future. They simply solve existing problems, which does not preclude the emergence of future problems.

@Tadasuke,

If all the information and website links provided in the course of this thread are not persuasive to you and only books are to be trusted

Oh, he believes in websites alright, just the one he likes.

[Bird]

Lives of 99% of humans used to be very short, awfully impoverished, tragically miserable, really brutish and profoundly upsetting.

Humans using energy derived from fossil fuels have made living more bearable and less abysmal in the recent history.

And now we are being told that "we are damaging the planet"?

THEN WHY DID WE EVOLVE ON THIS PLANET IN THE FIRST PLACE !?

First to suffer by the billions, and then to destroy it by being who we are and trying to make things better for ourselves? That would be TOTALLY FUCKED UP! I cannot possibly accept that!

Astounding that you appear to have ignored almost everything people have said to you in this thread.

[Cyber_Rebel]

THEN WHY DID WE EVOLVE ON THIS PLANET IN THE FIRST PLACE !?

First to suffer by the billions, and then to destroy it by being who we are and trying to make things better for ourselves? That would be TOTALLY FUCKED UP! I cannot possibly accept that!

Wait till you find out that 99% of all species to ever exist are extinct. We aren't special. We're a part of an ecosystem, and like it or not, damaging said ecosystem will damage our livelihoods in turn.

Nature itself is amoral, so it's best to view this in pragmatic terms, in the sense that one would not wish to burn down their own house or set the houses of their surrounding neighborhood aflame.

I mean, we very well could drill baby drill, but such isn't advisable unless you had other habitable planets as backups.

[wjfox]

"CO2 is plant food"

https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/vi ... 5753669583

[Tadasuke]

Wait till you find out that 99% of all species to ever exist are extinct. We aren't special. We're a part of an ecosystem, and like it or not, damaging said ecosystem will damage our livelihoods in turn.

Nature itself is amoral, so it's best to view this in pragmatic terms, in the sense that one would not wish to burn down their own house or set the houses of their surrounding neighborhood aflame.

I mean, we very well could drill baby drill, but such isn't advisable unless you had other habitable planets as backups.

I did not ask for this.

[Tadasuke]

There is no statistical evidence that hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike have been intensifying. But there is ample evidence that CO² mitigation measures are costly.

Steel-making process requires lots of carbon even if electricity was not from coal burning.

Batteries need graphite, nickel, cobalt, manganese, lithium, vanadium, aluminium, chromium, iron, copper and zinc. Unless some completely awesome next-gen batteries will be produced.

Current earthmovers consume very large volumes of diesel fuel.

How exactly does this whole "zero emission" work in practice? Badly.

I agree with a statement that giving birth is immoral because of suffering and a major lack of choice how, who, where and when you are going to be born. But I completely disagree with malthusians, as humans are not "destroying the planet" and are not "a parasite" on the planet anymore than any other species are.

Humans are the most conscious species on this planet and it looks like there are no other civilizations in this galaxy (unless stone age or underwater).

Decades of bilking taxpayers out of massive amounts of money have accomplished next to nothing to slow the growth of atmospheric CO2.

[wjfox]

There is no statistical evidence that hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike have been intensifying. But there is ample evidence that CO² mitigation measures are costly.

Steel-making process requires lots of carbon even if electricity was not from coal burning.

Batteries need graphite, nickel, cobalt, manganese, lithium, vanadium, aluminium, chromium, iron, copper and zinc. Unless some completely awesome next-gen batteries will be produced.

Current earthmovers consume very large volumes of diesel fuel.

How exactly does this whole "zero emission" work in practice? Badly.

I agree with a statement that giving birth is immoral because of suffering and a major lack of choice how, who, where and when you are going to be born. But I completely disagree with malthusians, as humans are not "destroying the planet" and are not "a parasite" on the planet anymore than any other species are.

Humans are the most conscious species on this planet and it looks like there are no other civilizations in this galaxy (unless stone age or underwater).

Decades of bilking taxpayers out of massive amounts of money have accomplished next to nothing to slow the growth of atmospheric CO2.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GdXQH6yWcAE ... name=small

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GdEGOMcagAE ... =4096x4096

Wow, you really are thoroughly brainwashed. There's just no getting through to you.

By virtually every metric imaginable, human activity is degrading this planet's biosphere and profoundly upsetting the natural balance. Even without climate change, our impact should be overwhelmingly obvious:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodivers ... _Index.svg

You've posted some images/memes which are extremely clichéd, and have been debunked a million times online. I refer you to:

https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php

And once again, why can't you accept the findings of 99.9% of peer-reviewed climate studies? Including the likes of NASA, the same agency that put people on the Moon and landed probes on comets. Would you do the same for medical science, like say the consensus on treating a disease or injury?

Why do you prefer listening to evil grifters, who are paid by enormously weathly fossil fuel interests to distort the science, cherry pick studies, and take things out of context in order to maintain the status quo? Does it ever occur to you that you might be completely wrong and are being lied to? Millionaire and billionaire elites with vested interests are somehow more believable than the people actually on the ground, and in the laboratories, studying this subject for the last 200 years? That's some insane level of brainwashing.

[firestar464]

"naturally every expert out there is lying to me except for these super duper amazing people that I like"

[Cyber_Rebel]

I did not ask for this.

None of us did, to answer the quote of the guy in my avatar. But it's not just about you, or any single one of us. The tax incentives regarding climate change tend to be aimed at large corporations producing emissions, so this idea that it's causing an economic burden on working class people isn't exactly accurate. It's actually more costly to respond to damages produced by climate inaction.

Climate-related extreme weather events cost the global economy more than $2 trillion over the past decade and the U.S. was the worst-affected nation, per a report published as leaders gather for the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan Monday.

The report found developing economies could be hit hard with single extreme weather events — which often reach economic costs higher than a nation's annual GDP

Source for article: https://www.axios.com/2024/11/11/extrem ... ange-cop29

Source for data study in question and how this outcome was concluded (please read): https://embed.documentcloud.org/documen ... s/?embed=1

This takes into account human capital losses and losses of livelihood due to climate disaster, so you tell me if it's too costly not to address averting these outcomes.

Also, no other species is advanced enough to produce industrial scale emissions in the first place, nor cause ecological habitat loss on a wide scale in such a short frame of time.

As for Al Gore, we've had research indicating human impact on the climate for quite a while:

One of the world's largest oil companies accurately forecast how climate change would cause global temperature to rise as long ago as the 1970s, researchers claim.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64241994

ExxonMobil's private research predicted how burning fossil fuels would warm the planet but the company publicly denied the link, they suggest.

The academics analyzed data in the company's internal documents.

"Their excellent climate modelling was at least comparable in performance to one of the most influential and well-regarded climate scientists of modern history," Prof Supran said, comparing ExxonMobil's work to Nasa's James Hansen who sounded the alarm on climate in 1988.

Another story on earlier predictions made from The Guardian:

Revealed: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

Exxon scientists predicted there would be global heating of about 0.2C a decade due to the emissions of planet-heating gases from the burning of oil, coal and other fossil fuels. The new analysis, published in Science, finds that Exxon’s science was highly adept and the “projections were also consistent with, and at least as skillful as, those of independent academic and government models”

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Rather than directing your anger towards climate scientist or environmentalist who are simply doing their jobs, perhaps you should better turn it towards those who mislead the public into a false sense of security in the first place.

[wjfox]